Part 9 (1/2)

The thought at once a.s.sailed me that the cause of her indisposition might be her ill-requited love.

Why did I return her glances of fire? Why did I basely deceive her? Why did I make her believe I loved her? Why did my vile lips seek hers with ardor, and communicate the ardor of an unholy love to hers?

But no; my sin shall not be followed, as its unavoidable consequence, by another sin!

What has been, has been, and can not be undone; but a repet.i.tion of it may be avoided, shall be avoided in future.

On the 25th, I repeat, I shall depart from here without fail.

The impudent Antonona has just come to see me. I hid this letter from her, as if it were a crime to write to you.

Antonona remained here only for a moment.

I arose, and remained standing while I spoke to her, that the visit might be a short one.

During this short visit she gave utterance to a thousand absurdities that afflict me profoundly. Finally, as she was going away, she exclaimed, in her half-gypsy jargon:

”Get away, you deceiver! you villain! my curse upon you! You have made the child sick, and now you are killing her with your subterfuges. May witches fly away with you, body and bones!”

Having said this, the fiendish woman gave me, in a coa.r.s.e plebeian fas.h.i.+on, six or seven ferocious pinches below the shoulders, as if she would like to tear the skin from my back in strips; and then went away, looking daggers at me.

I do not complain. I deserve this brutal jest, granting it to be a jest.

I deserve that fiends should tear my flesh with red-hot pincers.

Grant, my G.o.d, that Pepita may forget me; let her, if it be necessary, love another, and be happy with him!

Can I do more than ask thee this, O my G.o.d?

My father knows nothing, suspects nothing; it is better thus.

Farewell for a few days, till we see and embrace each other again.

How changed will you find me! How full of bitterness my heart! How lost my innocence! How bruised and wounded my soul!

II.

PARALIPOMENA.

Here end the letters of Don Luis de Vargas. We should therefore be left in ignorance of the subsequent fortunes of these lovers, and this simple and ardent love-story would have remained without an ending, if one familiar with all the circ.u.mstances had not left us the following narrative:

No one in the village found anything strange in the fact of Pepita's being indisposed, or thought, still less, of attributing her indisposition to a cause of which only we, Pepita herself, Don Luis, the reverend dean, and the discreet Antonona, are thus far cognizant.

They might rather have wondered at the life, of gayety that Pepita had been leading for some time past, at the daily gatherings at her house, and the excursions into the country in which she had joined. That Pepita should return to her habitual seclusion was quite natural.

Her secret and deeply rooted love for Don Luis was hidden from the searching glances of Dona Casilda, of Currito, and of all the other personages of the village of whom mention is made in the letters of Don Luis. Still less could the public know of it. It never entered into the head, of any one--no one imagined for a moment that the theologian, the _saint,_ as they called Don Luis, could become the rival of his father, or could have succeeded where the redoubtable and powerful Don Pedro de Vargas had failed--in winning the heart of the lovely, graceful, coy, and reserved young widow.

Notwithstanding the familiarity of the ladies of the village with their servants, Pepita had allowed none of hers to suspect anything. Only the lynx-eyed Antonona, whom nothing could escape, and more especially nothing that concerned her young mistress, had penetrated the mystery.